The reason I did this was because I wanted to see what impact legalizing same-sex marriage had on people. One of the biggest things a couple often does around the time they get married is buy a house together. I assumed that people who reported themselves as married to their spouse in a state where same-sex marriage wasn't legal got married elsewhere. Negative 1-year changes are net decreases in same-sex households for that state, which could be explained by more couples moving to a different state or separating than the number getting married. I started in 2008 since the Census Bureau changed how they counted households then.

On MLK Day, ICE deports Jorge Garcia, a married father of 2 kids in metro Detroit who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years. He was brought to the U.S. when he was 10 years-old by undocumented family members, making him too old to qualify for DACA